|
|
West Moors
|
|
 |
... BEFORE THE RAILWAY: The year is 1847 and Queen Victoria had been on the throne for 10 years. Across the fields that lined either side of Mannington Brook, farmers and their field-workers went about their daily tasks much as their forebears had done for hundreds of years past. Two years earlier, perhaps un-noticed by many, surveyors employed by the Southampton & Dorchester Railway had made steady progress from east-to-west, crossing the lonely wastes of moorland that lay between Ringwood and Wimborne Minster, pausing no doubt to remark how much more pleasant it was to cross the area either side of the water with its green fields and quiet, ordered way of rural life. They would be followed over the following months by more unwelcome visitors: gangs of navvies and builders, carpenters, plate-layers and civil engineers and in 1847, with the passing of the first scheduled train across what we now call Station Road, life for this corner of rural Dorset, as elsewhere across the land, would be changed forever. By the end of Victoria's reign, in 1901, the changes wrought by the railway and the ideas and opportunities it would bring would hurry along a revolution in the ways of English village folk not seen since the Roman legions first passed this way. |
| ... COUNTRY LIFE IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY:
This rural district of east Dorset was tucked away from the hurly-burly of life: the community, such as it was, consisted of a patchwork of fairly small farms scattered on either side of the Mannington Brook & Uddens Water with no doubt a few rough dwellings dotted about the edge of the moor. Only down these tributaries of the Moors River, in turn feeding the Avon, was the soil of sufficient richness to support mixed farming so typical of the times: some cattle, poultry, pigs, with crops grown in rotation. Sheep in particular could be grazed on the open heathland & cattle were also turned out there making use, where not 'stopped', of commoner's grazing rights. Until the early 19th century enclosure Acts, local people could freely graze cattle & pigs on the common land, and even after enclosure, many landowners would be reluctant to impose restrictions on such practices. |
 |
||
 |
Dorset was sparsely populated in the mid-19th century, with around 65 000 souls across the entire county. In 1841, the population of the whole of West Parley parish (of which West Moors was the northern-most section) was 254. Using the returns from the 1841 census, and trying to pick out all those associated with 'West Moors', then the population for this particular area was something like 80-90 people distributed through 16 or so dwellings. Before the railways the area was rather bleak; rough heathland, draining acid water via the brooks and streams into the Moors River, which in turn feeds the Avon; Uddens water & Mannington brook are rather less acid as they have their origin in the more fertile area to the west and northwest of the village. It is arguable that there was no 'West Moors' village as such, until the coming of the railway caused a community to coalesce around the location of the crossing house / halt (later junction station). At least half of these were associated with the 6 farms across the 'West Moors' part of the parish (4 to 8 people per farmhouse / quite typical for the time), with the remaining households, also reasonably large, associated with the land - e.g., often listed as 'agricultural labourer' or some-such. |
||
Land either side of the Uddens & Mannington waters was split into small fields, each being farmed by such as Woolslope Farm, Dolman's Farm, West Moors Farm (down from current Chemist / Farm Road etc.), Gulliver's Farm (north of village, on Station Road) & Sturt's Farm & these would have formed the 'locus' for what population 'centres' there were up until the middle of the 19th century (see the map in the next section). But the land immediately adjacent to the present-day Station Road, and all the land up to and straddling the Moors River, was open moorland, being divided between West Moors Common & St. Leonard's Common. |
Each farm would have been self-sufficient, not only in the foodstuff produced, but in employment of workers - farm labourers would have been tied to one farm from the earliest days of their working lives to the end - even young children would have been used on the farm, especially at harvest-time, supplemented by travelling labour - the heathland was a favourite stopping-off place for gypsies. For other needs, travelling pedlars provided the smaller 'odds & ends' of life & other tradesmen provided services such as stone-masonry, basket-making & thatching. The farms were unlikely to have been freehold, but more likely leased from one of the great landed estates. |
||
| ... GETTING AROUND BEFORE THE RAILWAY: So, before the railway, how did people travel? Well, for ordinary folk, the need to travel great distances simply wasn't there: most of their wants, which of course were fairly basic, were catered for within the local community: life was very simple. The farmers, their families and bailiffs would have had the use of small carts, or they would ride a horse - this animal being ubiquitous. To move goods about from village to village, there was no postal or parcels service. The local carrier would trundle slowly about the highways & byways of rural Dorset, picking up & depositing packages as required. And of course, people just walked! Distances covered on foot were considerably greater than we would contemplate now - if there was a school available, children might have to walk great distances to attend - many poor children simply didn't go to school, and a labourer needing work would travel 5 miles or more - with a long working day in between each journey. [ See short note at the foot of this page regarding the first school in West Moors.] In our part of the county in the early 19th century, there were two turnpike roads - these grew in importance from the latter part of the 18th century, when turnpike trusts were established which maintained hard-surfaced roads in return for tolls charged at toll houses / booths & bridges. Nearest to West Moors, the modern-day A31 follows roughly the route of the Ringwood to Wimborne turnpike (though along the old Wimborne Road rather than the latter bypass), and to Poole, the current A347/A348 diverges off the Ringwood turnpike at Tricketts Cross - as it does today. Away from the toll-maintained turnpikes though, the 'roads' were in fact little more than tracks - not very much different to the 'green' forest tracks you might find on your weekend walk. The more popular ones would be heavily rutted from constant farm traffic - the ruts would fill with water in autumn & winter, hidden by deceptive snow banks in the harsher winters & bake hard & 'ankle-turning' in a long, hot summer! These trackways would be crudely maintained, though in a rather hit & miss fashion, by the parish through which they ran - effectively the large landowners would bear the cost & not all such would see the need to pay the price. "Station Road" (as it became known) was almost certainly like this, with a small stream crossing the road where Tesco is now & a wooden bridge crossing the Uddens. But unlike nowadays, moving about wasn't confined to using trackways alone - if your journey could be accomplished by crossing a farmer's field, or fording a stream (bridges were expensive & only used in rare circumstances), then that was the route taken. A route across the sandy-soiled heathland was in many ways easier, as the drainage was better and the tracks did not get waterlogged quite so easily. The way was rather bleak though - at least in the shorter days of winter; in summer, the way was rather more pleasant though country-folk would have had little time to appreciate the scenery - unless you were a youngster. For the 'great ones' in the 'big houses' to go to and from the nearest market town or to visit adjacent estates, then a carriage was used - and for places like Uddens, Canford or Merley, a large part of the route could be over your own well-made carriage-way, until you reached the nearest turnpike. Except in exceptional circumstances, the major landowners didn't use the country tracks - if they wanted to see a tenant, the tenant went to the 'house', not the other way about!
Back down the social ladder, and local visits by 'ordinary' people, to get to Wimborne or Ringwood markets, would have involved being away all day - probably leaving early morning and returning in the evening. Many people of course would have spent their whole lives never moving outside the area of their birth. Country-folk were much more self-sufficient than we are, though of course with a much lower level of expectation: food was not quite as exciting as that of today, certainly for the labouring classes. The necessities of life were all around - wood, turf, peat and heather were used to heat stoves. Coal was only affordable by wealthy establishments and that coal had to be first brought to the coast by sailing vessels from South Wales or the northeast of England, then slow carting to the 'big houses' of the interior. |
|||
| ... THE TIMES ARE ABOUT TO CHANGE:
In his novel 'The Return of the Native', Thomas Hardy frequently describes what it must have been like to live & work on Dorset heathland: this passage occurs early in that work .... " It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature - neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly: neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony ... solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities. " In 1840s, surveyors employed by the Southampton & Dorchester Railway no doubt traversed just such a landscape so vividly described by Thomas Hardy. Whether they appreciated the wealth of wildlife or the fact that the heathland was a product of generations of sparse occupation by people dating back to the Bronze Age is doubtful. The heathland soils are poor - hence the dominant flora comprising heaths & heathers. No arable crops were grown here, but the heath could be used to graze cattle, sheeps & horses. These would have cropped the heathers and prevented the growth of larger trees, at least in any number, and the heath was used to provide turf & peat for fuel, along with heather for a variety of purposes. |
|||
 |
This map shows the area around West Moors during the early part of the nineteenth century. At the bottom, you can make out the turnpike roads running from Ringwood to Wimborne and Poole, splitting at Trickett's Cross. To the north, Horton Heath can be picked out, with Ashley Heath to the east. Note the track running from the Ringwood turnpike (just east of where the road crosses the Uddens) straight across what was then called 'Woolbridge (or Woolsbridge)' Heath (later St. Leonard's Heath) and on to Three Legged Cross. It was this track that was later cut-off by the railway and today there is no trace of it! | ||
| Why then would the Southampton & Dorchester Railway be interested in the area? Draw a line from Ringwood (an important ancient market town on the western fringe of the New Forest) and Wimborne Minster, it just so happens that the small settlement of West Moors is on its route. This alignment makes most use of the expanse of cheap-to-buy heathland; a route closer to the Ringwood / Wimborne turnpike would have been costlier. To the west, the line bends south and in returning to the approaches to Wimborne, it gives rise to the notorious tightly-curved approach to Wimborne station. It is interesting to speculate that this sweep south was to keep the noise and fuss of the railway away from Uddens (or Uddings) House (& associated Home Park) - whose land the railway was crossing - but of course the deviation did also avoid the higher ground around Coleshill. |
|||
| ... NOTE REGARDING THE FIRST SCHOOL IN WEST MOORS: In 1842 land owned by the Fryer family, probably on the eastern side of "Station Road" (though not named that at this time of course) was conveyed to the National Society for a school. However, there is confusion over which side of the road this was on, because in "The Heart of the Village", Catherine Hazard states that this was on land 'adjacent' to the modern-day Memorial Hall; this of course could mean two things - either on the west side of Station Road, or on the east side, bearing in mind that we are talking about an poorly-defined cart track / drove road. The history of West Moors church web site has the early school just north of the present-day church, with the residence for the school-mistress on the opposite side of the road. I suspect this may be the later 1850s building. According to Hutchinson's 1868 History of Dorset, the school-room was built in 1843 and had a chapel with a turret and single bell. Children would attend from ages 3 or 4 up to roughly 14, but schooling wasn't compulsory & the 'roll' would have been highly variable - weather affected and parents would have thought nothing of taking children out of school to help at home or on the farm; based on the census returns for 1851, 1861 & 1871, the first 'schoolmistress' (perhaps not qualified) was one Mrs Charlotte Pottle. The numbers of children in the 'West Moors' catchment (assumed) area aged 4 to 14, are 1841 = 25, 1851 = 26, 1861 = 28, so the earliest school probably only had a dozen or so regular attendees. ] |
|
